Question For Evolutionist Baptists

The state of the art has advanced a bit since the days of Darwin you know...

Anyhow, you want transitionals. How about a whole series of transitionals. No mere microevolution or speciation here. Full on evolution of a new class, us, the mammals. Apologies for quoting myself on another thread.

Let's see, a YEC asks where are the transitionals and I produce a long, detailed series of transitionals showing the evolution of reptiles into mammals. What response do you think we will see? (a)No response. They ask but have not studied enough to make sense of the answer. (b) "Those are not transitionals. You must have misinterpreted the data." Without interpreting the data correctly. (c) "But where are the transitions between these transitionals?" Also known as moving the goalposts. (d) "But these are all just created kinds. There's no evidence they are actually related." In which case they will never accept anything as a transitional, no matter the evidence, so what is the point of discussing if you cannot get an intellectually honest discussion? Also makes the ark an awfully crowded place. (e) Other. Give us your favorites.

 

Except that your assertion is wrong. I believe in the possibility of evolution, and I'm 100% saved. So your assertion is clearly wrong.

 

So, the sun did not LITERALLY stand stiil. Rather, the sun appeared to stand in relation to the earth. For all intents and purpose, the observation from the earth was that the sun was standing still in relation to its normal course in the sky.

In other words, the sun standing still was FIGURATIVE. The sun having the affect that it stood still is still the literal truth, however.

Interestingly, we usually don't second guess the salvific status of those who assert the above.

 

I am still amazed at how people try to explain away the power of God. Now matter that the workings of His hand are recorded for us in His word, some people would still rather hold on to the theories of man's finite mind.

I was once an evolutionist. I was also unsaved. I became saved, but still held on to evolution as the only "logical" explanation. It took a while, but God finally pried my eyes open enough to actually look at His word, His creation. I no longer accept evolution as fact, but rather man's fanciful way of trying to explain away the power of God, just as I have read thus far in this thread.

Problem: If Genesis is not truth, Literal hard undeniable truth, then the whole Bible (with Genesis as its foundation) is in question. If Adam is but an image, an imaginary construct to show mankind's weakness, then there was no Fall, no original sin. If God did not create this world from nothing but His spoken command, then God Himself is a liar and completely without any power whatsoever. If God is without power, and there was no sin by Adam, death becomes a natural process, and the sacrifice made by Jesus becomes worthless.

Am I making any sense whatsoever? Either God's word to man, the Bible, is truth (and not some fairy tale about a million-plus year creation), or it is just a huge waste of time and paper. By denying the work of God (and claiming "guided evolution" is totally ignorant...can we say "oxymoron"?), the very fabric of absolute truth is rent from top to bottom. Either it is, or it ain't.

In Christ,
Trotter

 

There is no such person!</font>[/QUOTE]Matthew,

I agree, there are no Christian evolutionists. By using that term I refer only to those who claim to be Christians while yet believing in evolution. If you have read the posts from the past few days you will have seen that I have asserted a man who believes in evolution can't possibly be saved.

I apologize if the use of this term caused any misunderstanding.

Mark Osgatharp </font>[/QUOTE]Romans 14:4 (NASB)
Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand. </font>[/QUOTE]Well quoted, Paul of Eugene and this moderator is willing to back the commands of Christ and Paul in this matter.

You are all free to dispute the matter. You can throw some food and stand on your soap boxes.Get mad, show despair, even tantrum a bit.

However, there will be NO MORE questioning of another member's salvation on this matter allowed on this board.

This Gnostic-like view of a certain interpretation and view of Scripture being necessary to salvation runs counter to the message of the New Testament texts no matter how you slice it and it will no longer be tolerated.

Honestly, I do not know why I tolerated it this long.

 

I do not believe that I ever said that the Bible was in error. Obviously, I think that the creation narrative is to be taken as something other than a literal, blow by blow account. I am not certain that metaphor is the correct word here, but I do not have a better word. Now I also think that you could twist my statement that the perspective of the writer could have colored some of the accounts as being the same as claiming error. But I do not think that is saying the Bible is in error and I stated so previously and you did not address it nor object to it. If I recall correctly, I think I also said that most of it should be taken as an accurate account of the interaction of God in men's lives. There was not an exhaustive list of items to see if there are any others that I would consider metaphor. I think I also headed off one of the potential questions by stating my thoughts on the flood.

Now, I tried very hard to be completely honest with your questions even though I know that some of my answers leave the door open for you to challenge me. Would you please do the same and answer the question I posed? I would prefer to hear from multiple YECs.

 

UTEOTW,
What exactly do you believe? You mentioned before (I think) about mankind and apes evolved from a common ancestor or possibly, please correct me if I am wrong. What I would like to know is what is your definition of a common ancestor? What did it look like? If it evolved into man, doesn’t that make Jesus death and resurrection null and void?

You can answer in a PM if you think that Q/A are inappropriate for this thread.

Thanks.

 

I'll share my own thoughts on this matter . .

I see Adam as the First Man. He was the one God took aside in "breathed on", making him to become a "living soul", in the image of God. As a special creation of a new kind, it makes sense to me that God would have taken Eve from his rib.

Adam was placed in Eden. There, he could have partaken of the tree of life and lived forever but for his fall.

The coming of death spoken of in scripture is death for humanity.

As for the place of transitional forms, earlier species and so forth, those I leave for science to evaluate according to what evidence becomes available over the years.

Christ's death and resurrection was certainly not null and void, it was the means of our redemption!

 

So you believe there was life before Genesis?

 

So, just for clarification, you believe that Adam was born from a set of parents but that Eve was a special creation not born from parents? If that's true, why would you accept the straightforward teaching about Eve but not about Adam (being formed from the dust of the ground, not parents)?

Andy

 

UTEOTW:
I see you are skilled at cutting and pasting. I cannot even pronounce most of these "mythological" animals you refer to. Perhaps you think that by listing these non-existent transitional forms it will make you appear to be even more intelligent.

It seems that if man, over billions and billions of years, evolved from an amoeba to a human, there would be billions of fossils to show this slow change. Since your insistence on God using evolution is false, so too is the facts you attempt to put forth supporting this position.

It is really very simple. Either evolutionary science is true or God's Word is true. You cannot have it both ways. As has been stated by others in this thread, if the account of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden is flawed, so too is the Biblical account of man's redemption. If Adam did not sin in the manner in which God said that he did, there is no basis for man being guilty before a holy God.

If we cannot put our faith in what God said in Genesis, we cannot trust Him to be telling the truth in John, Romans, or any other book in the Bible. There is no reason that God would resort to "fairy tales" when He has complete knowledge of the true facts.

There are, evidently, many here who cannot believe what God says. They feel a need to reconcile our science books and our Bible. What is truly sad is that when there is a disagreement, these people will take the science book literally while analogizing the Bible. For me, I will believe what God says and assume that the scientist are the ones who are wrong.

 

So, just for clarification, you believe that Adam was born from a set of parents but that Eve was a special creation not born from parents? If that's true, why would you accept the straightforward teaching about Eve but not about Adam (being formed from the dust of the ground, not parents)?

Andy </font>[/QUOTE]Well, I see the statement as to Adam being formed from the dust of the earth as a veiled reference to the evolutionary history of Adam's flesh, put into language that the men could understand at the dawn of history.

 

As I've pointed out before, this is a logical error. It's equivalent to saying that if one phone number in a telephone book is wrong, they all must be wrong. In another sense, it's even worse, it's like saying that since the page numbers in a telephone book are not phone numbers, none of the numbers are phone numbers.

-Neil

 

Now there's a question that leaves me speechless!

So I'll change the subject and talk about the evidence for old universe and evolution in a general way. The evidence for an old earth and for evolution has impacted me in a convincing manner. That is to say, at this point I am unable to bring myself to choose to call it false, any more than I can choose to say the sun goes around the earth instead of the earth going around the sun, or that all insects have only four legs. I can't say those things, because I must be true to what I have seen and understood to be true.

I therefore regard the denial of evolution and age of the universe as simple blindness to available evidence. This is a passing transitional phase in the history of christian thought. Oh, I suppose there will always be anti-evolutionists just as there are flat earthers, but the time will come (should our Lord tarry long enough) they will be about that influential.

 

There's so much bashing of evolutionists around here, I think it's time to reverse the flow of bad vibes. Modern science is a complex, interconnected framework: you tweak physics, it touches cosmology, that touches chemistry, that touches biology, that touches petro-geology, that touches civil engineering, etc. You attack one part unscientifically, you risk damage to the whole.

So today, remember to thank an evolutionist if you've:

1) Driven a car.
2) Used anything made of plastic.
3) Benefited from a new drug.
4) Eaten food grown using safer pesticides or bio-pest-control.
5) Enjoyed the modern versions of corn, the cabbage family, or a tomato.
6) Used an electronic product improved using evolutionary-programming.
7) Paid cheaper electric rates because of natural-gas fired plants.

If you're not sure why any of these things involve evolution, thank your local library for providing a place where you can learn why.

Thank a brother or sister in Christ who has a different belief regarding evolution for being concerned enough about your spiritual health to debate the issue with you. (i.e. Creationists thank evolutionists, and evolutionists thank creationists.)

And, evolution aside, remember to thank your mom, dad, spouse, neighbor, etc. for something nice they do that you've started to take for granted.

Thank God without ceasing!

-Neil

 

Matthew 16:24,

I tried to answer your question of what the common ancestors were on the other thread and I thinkI did a pretty good job there. As far as the the other, I do not know. I lean towards something along the lines of what Paul said, but not completely. In short, at some point God would have breathed the breath of life into man, giving him a soul. I regret that I don't have time now to give a fuller answer. I worked all night, I just got up, and I want to catch as much of the Bama / Tenn. game as I can before I have to head back to work. If you wish, I can give a fuller answer later, but it might be late Sunday or on into Monday sometime.

Terry

I love how you just dismiss these as mythological creatures. Just what were these bones we dug up then? I can't pronounce some of them either, but I can copy the the name and go paste it into Google to see what bones were found about each creature. I assure you, they existed and are not mythological. If you disagree, go look and tell us what was actually found. I even gave you a link where they have drawing of all these things lined up so you can just look at the pictures. Did you go? No? But you still dismiss them out of hand.

Oh yeah, I copied and pasted from myself. I took quite a long list with very detailed and very technical writeups for most of the creatures and slashed and condensed it down to something that people without the proper background, like me, might be able to understand. There are many more features that are shown evolving, but I narrowed it down to things that are easy so see like teeth and shoulders and toes. Not exactly cut and paste and it originially took me quite a while to do. My original is in the archives at the bottom of the list of forums if you want to go read that thread. But, of course, none of the YECs were able to dispute anything about the transitionals then either. Amazing, you ask for transitionals, I give you transitionals, and you call them mythological. Wow! How I am supposed to get through that? You cannot even look at the evidence. It's like the old church leaders who refused to even look through Galileo's telescope at the moon of Jupiter going around the planet.

Anyone going to answer my question posed twice above?

 

UTEOTW,

As to your question...

If I did not know the Bible's account of creation, and evolution was presented as fact, along with its hodge-podge string of bone bits for "evidence" then, yes, I would accept evolution as truth. In fact, that is what I did for the first 24-25 years of my life. Now I can say, "What a waste of time, intellect, and energy."

Evolution looks plausible, and it sounds great...mankind evolved from a long line of evolving creatures, and all without God. It sort of makes an atheist get all teary-eyed just thinking of how so many Christians are gutting their own beliefs.

I do not doubt your salvation, or your intellect. I was once where you are, so I understand. But, although I was once there, I am not there anymore. When God called me out to a life of service to Him, He started by showing me that what He said is what He meant. You see, I've used that arguement about "They wrote what they understood it to mean, as best as their minds could grasp it," along with all the others. It's easier to see the whole of creation as just one cosmic chain reaction than to have to admit that God formed all of creation from nothing. By holding to this idea, we open the door to interpret and alter "God" to fit our own desires. Without the Fall, there is no judgement of death for sin. Without that judgement, there is no penalty to pay. Without that penalty, Jesus died for nothing.

Oh, and the idea that Adam "evolved" enough for God to give him a soul, but then for Him to "make" Eve is just beyond hilarious. Thanks, I needed a good laugh.

In Christ,
Trotter

 

This made me laugh, so the YEC’s should thank evolutionist for technology? Give me a break!
Science for the most part is a good thing but the theory of evolution has made it bad as well YEC’s. God created this world with laws, some can be broken some can’t. There is nothing wrong with trying to figure out how they work together and how God created life to sustain itself. It is pretty obvious God provided us with plenty of resources to create the technology we have today and yes science and the constant studying of how things work made it possible. What I disagree with and believe is a disgrace to God in his power in creation is the belief we evolved from a lower intelligent primate or even worse from bacteria or whatever the Atheist believe now.
When I refer to evolutionist, I am talking about people who believe that mankind evolved from monkeys, a lower intelligent primate.
Now I am beginning to wonder how far “Christian evolutionist” take it.

The phone book is a bad analogy, for one the phone book was inspired by humans not God almighty who is perfect without blemish.

This reminds me of a thread that where two engineers were going back and fourth of how something worked. Both were real knowledgeable and knew their stuff until after while one of the guys pulled out his ace card and said “I know what I am taking about, I designed (made) it”. The other guy pretty much shut up after that.

I feel this is what some of you guys are doing that God is saying this how life began but you are saying no our research shows you are wrong, even though you try to disguise it by interpreting Genesis differently.
To be saved takes faith but you want scientific evidence, which won’t happen.

 

UTEOTW,
Ah, I found it, I thought you answered my question before but I forgot where. So if you believe this, why do you believe in God or in the Bible for that matter?
Reason why I ask is because if I believed this I wouldn’t be wasting my time going to Church and serving a God who does not exist.
So do you believe Adam existed &lt;10,000 years ago but human like apes existed millions of years ago?
These are serious questions BTW. I am just trying to get a better understanding of where you are coming from.
You may have answered these questions already, if so, please refer to me the specific post.

Thanks